Sunday, April 30, 2:00 PM. Amy.

I am destroyed, I am destroyed. There’s so much joy and so much hate and anger and love and he has one more time lain me out naked and ashamed. I will fly apart.

I came out for church this morning. It was good to do. I didn’t say much, but I sang the songs and I listened. It’s been two weeks, but everyone is still so sad, we move around in jerks and starts like marionettes. Garrett preached the sermon, 1 Thessalonians 4:13. I can tell he’s very disappointed in me.

He finished. We thought we would pray. But he pulled from his back pocket a set of envelopes, one for each member of the family. He said that Dad had slipped them to him in his last days, before he lost consciousness. He had directed Garrett to hold onto them for two weeks, and then give them to us.

Our eyes went as wide as targets. Garrett handed them out. I’m sure we all felt an awful mix of fear and hope and anxiety and ecstasy. We tore into them. Garrett sat down, watching us, and opened his own.

We read greedily. Brewer’s writing was hard to make out in places. Every once in a while the silence was broken by a gasp or a sob, mine as much as anyone’s. After four or five minutes we were all in tears, sinking to the floor, and we hugged and choked and bawled. Even Beth cried, though she didn’t know why. Claire said he had sent one for the animals, and she read it to us. I said there was one for Beth and we might as well share it until she was old enough. I read it. He was right that I didn’t like parts of it, but they might as well know.

Then Claire asked if we could trade letters and read them all. Garrett hesitated, but in the end we all agreed. Then came half an hour more of reading and weeping and smiling and weeping some more.

If he were here I would kick him and then hug him and then bed him and then slap him until I couldn’t slap no more.

But he’s not. And now it’s only the letters. It’s more than we had, and there’s the joy. But it’s less that we need, and there’s the anger, the rage.

Tuesday, March 28. To Trevor.

Dear Trevor,

You are so smart. I thank God you have your mother’s brains and not mine. They will serve you well all your days, and help you serve others. You’ll lead even when you don’t know you’re leading. You’ll show people the right way to go when nobody else knows. Stand up for what you know even when everyone else disagrees.

Be careful not to hide inside your head. You’ll be tempted to hang around the tents like Jacob. Get out. Put your hands on things to help in practical ways. Your mind will make things easy for you. Be careful of laziness.

I’m saying some things in this letter you can understand now and some you will understand later.

I’m afraid I’ve overlooked you sometimes. I’m sorry. It’s not for lack of love.

Ask Mom to finish reading The Lord of the Rings to you. After that read The Chronicles of Narnia. You will like them.

I’m proud of you. I always will be. Be a good husband. You will have to work harder than others to understand her heart. But you will always do right, and if she can remember that, her love will never run dry.

Love,

Your dad,

Brewer John Wilcox

Wednesday, March 29. To Claire.

Dear Claire,

My sweet, sweet girl. How can I say goodbye to you? It’s more than I can bear.

You are the finest daughter there ever was. These last few months we’ve seen your strength come out. Your strength of love is made of steel.

I know how you took care of me when I was unconscious and I couldn’t take care of myself. Thank you. I saw how you helped with the birth, just like an expert midwife. I see how you help Mommy by taking care of Beth.

You are strong because you carry a heavier weight than others. That’s always been so. From the time you were a very little girl you laughed when others laughed, got mad when they got mad, cried when they cried. You were born loving people, and there is no more painful way to be. You became strong as you learned to push ahead even with all those emotions, all that pain coming at you.

You have learned, like I have, to find light in the darkness. I wonder whether you’ve learned—if not, you soon will—that to seek the light within the darkness is to summon the light into the darkness. Hope, rightly placed, is its own reward. Faith does not only wish for, but creates, what it seeks. These things are true even now, when all our hope and faith that I would be healed has come to nothing.

I pray you will reach a full understanding of the light that is inside you.

I am ready to see God. I hope that will encourage you, because it’s true. There’s a rightness even in this. But saying goodbye to you is the hardest part of all. It really is. You’re the brightest piece of heaven I’m leaving behind.

Some of this letter you may not understand until you’re older. You might read it from time to time.

I am putting in another letter for you to read to the animals. I feel like they deserve a blessing from me, don’t you?

All my love,

Daddy

Wednesday, March 29. To the Animals.

Dear Coolidge, Blizzard, Ilsa, Wizard, Princess, Lady, Arwen, Molly, Pudding, et. al.,

I know that Claire would be most put-out (as she would say) if I didn’t say something to you and you certainly deserve it so I will.

You are all fine animals and I am very proud of you. I am sorry to have to go so soon, but Amy and Garrett and Claire and Trevor, and eventually Beth, will make capable masters and mistresses.

I command you to protect and serve the humans and each other, never to hurt, but to help and care for each other. Keep your teeth and claws and hooves away from each other and you will do well. Obey me in this and you will never be without water and oats and scratches and shelter.

I charge the family always to take good care of you.

Blessings and love,

Your master,

Brewer Wilcox

Thursday, March 30. To Garrett.

Dear Garrett,

When I started writing my diary last July, I wanted to write for myself. I wanted to work through my thoughts and feelings, clear my head, straighten things out, prepare. I wanted to remember the details of what was happening. It helped to remember exactly what happened when we got back to Sawtooth, or on which day I installed the water pump. I thought I would go back later and learn from my own mistakes, mistakes with the farm, mistakes with how I dealt with Amy or with you or the other kids. I wanted to write down my prayers and see them answered. The diary has served in all those ways.

But in December when I got sick again I knew I might not be around long enough to enjoy reviewing it. Since then I haven’t been writing for myself. I’ve been writing for you. For all of you, my children and Amy too. I hope it’ll do you good and not harm.

Now you are the man of the house. I bestow on you all my worldly authority except what is rightfully retained by your mother.

You have charge of the farm: the animals, the crops, the machinery, the utilities, the vehicles, the weapons, the tools, and everything needed to maintain them. Take care of them, improve them, expand them. Guard the well-being of the family. Make sure there is food and water and medicine and heat and cold.

Your job is decades long. Prepare for drought and flood, summer and winter, times of plenty and times of want.

A day will come when others will try to rule over you. If they are honorable and capable, give them your loyalty. But if you are the honorable one and they are wicked, be ready to fight for dominance. When you fight, show no quarter. Strike first, strike fast, strike hard, because there is no earthly law to control them. But be merciful in victory. Be gracious in all things.

I know that you have sometimes dabbled in reading the Scripture but you haven’t had the patience. Have it now. It will be your lifeblood. I charge you to read it all, habitually, diligently. Memorize all you can. When you’ve finished reading it, read it again. Never stop until you are old and can no longer see. Teach it to your brother and sisters.

Teach it to Amy.

She is having a crisis of faith. Who can blame her? This is a season of terrible pain like few have endured. She’s angry. Let her be angry. I believe she’ll rise out of it.

You have a delicate dance to perform. Honor your mother. Obey her. Give her first place in everything. Sometimes she will do things out of a knowledge you don’t have, just as you will her. You’re not responsible for her spirit—I have been, and God is. But care for her and guard her, challenge her when you must. She may yet come around.

It’s a heavy burden I pass to you. You are well prepared. You have a good heart. You are strong. Listen to others: listen carefully, then decide. You will lead well.

I’ve loved the times you and I have had together, especially these last few months. I wouldn’t trade all those driving lessons, the hunting trips, the hours we’ve spent together exploring and scavenging, not for all the world. Maybe I haven’t shown you enough how much I love you and admire you. No father was ever prouder of a son. I will miss you dearly, if there’s any missing where I’m going. And if there isn’t, it will be pure joy to wait for you and greet you in due time.

Until then,

Your dad,

Brewer

Friday, March 31. To Elizabeth.

Dear Elizabeth,

You won’t remember me. But I want you to know something of me, so that by seeing the Lord’s actions in my life you can know more of him and trust him more. Your mom will have to decide when you’re old enough to read this, but I ask her not to wait too long. I don’t have time to say all that I want to say to you or the others. So I’ll just say what’s most important.

My life has been lived under Grace.

Like you, I was raised without a father. You will know, as I knew, the terrible emptiness of that, like a house without a foundation, a sky without a moon.

My grandpa taught me about Jesus but I never understood. In high school a friend took me to church. I learned that I had a father, God himself, invisible and distant, yet loving and present. Something in me took root then, and since then my faith has never wavered.

Whatever else you find in life, know this: everything that comes, comes from love. No matter how bad it is, later it will be better.

Although I had a father, I also had demons, and sometimes the demons spoke louder. For many years I rebelled against God. I knew he was there, but I kept him at arm’s length.

She will probably not want you to know this, but I met your mom when she was a student and I a young coach at Lancombe High School in Florida. I robbed the cradle. That might sound funny or romantic now, but at the time it was raw lust on my part and silliness on hers. She was fifteen and I was twenty-four. We didn’t date, exactly, but we spent too much time together, we flirted, and we raised eyebrows everywhere.

When she was seventeen I committed the worst sin of my life. I seduced her. The details aren’t important. But I took her virginity. Statutory rape, even if she was willing. It was wrong. I’ve asked for forgiveness many times, and she forgives me. She’s always said it was her choice too, but at seventeen, how could she know that? It’s hung over my life all these years. I know I am forgiven, but I also know that my sin provides a valuable reminder of who I truly am without God to rescue me from myself. I’ve never forgotten it.

She stuck with me, and we started dating officially after she went to college. We never slept together again. We married the summer after her freshman year. Her family was livid. They never liked me. I don’t blame them.

It was not my only sin. I started drinking when I was in college and never really stopped. My friends and I drank nearly every day. It was just what we did. On the weekends I stayed drunk most of the time.

I hope it will not be so for you, but for me, all my life, I always felt a pervasive shame, a feeling of being unwanted and unwantable. The alcohol took the edge off and made me feel accepted, or numb, for a while.

I kept drinking after we married. It caused me to neglect your mother, to be absent and distant. Or maybe it was the other way around: I knew I didn’t deserve her, couldn’t be loved by her, and I drank to protect the space. Many of her wounds formed then.

God forgive me.

Garrett’s arrival made the change. I myself had no father except God, but he was invisible to me and vague. But now I was a father. And now at last I understood what love was, a pure love, a holy and awesome and perfect love. Then I understood Grace, when love swallows shame and inadequacy and failure, swallows it whole, never to be seen again.

I hope you will have children one day and will know what I knew and feel what I felt when I first held you in my arms.

I pray that you, my daughter, will live under Grace all the long days of your life. And I know that you will, because of my prayers.

Receive Grace, give Grace. You will grow up in a world that is alien from what I knew, but with Grace you will conquer all and thrive in every hardship.

It is very sad to me to have to leave you. How will you grow? Who will you become? What will you do in this world? I have to be patient to find out. But your time here in the shadowlands will not be long, and we will see each other soon.

Love,

Your father,

Brewer John Wilcox

Saturday, April 1. To Amy.

Dearest Amy,

I’ve written a letter to each of the kids. It’s taken a few days. My hands are weak. It feels like I haven’t used a pen in years. I’m not sure you’ll be able to read this.

I feel myself fading. I have so much to say to you and not enough time.

I’m giving these letters for Garrett to keep for a couple weeks. It will give you all a chance to get past the raw edge of your grief, so you can read them with a steadier heart and clearer head.

Please forgive me for all the pain I’ve caused you, all my sins against you. You’ll say I was perfect—the living can never find fault with the dead—but I wasn’t. I sinned against you every day, with impatience or criticism in my heart if not aloud, sometimes with hurtful anger, and with adultery in my mind even if not in my body.

My greatest sin against you was distance. I don’t know why I held you at arm’s length so long. It was all I knew. I didn’t feel I deserved you. I’m thankful for the warmth and closeness we enjoyed when the kids were little. I feel we got it back these last few months. I’m sorry it has to end.

You have been a superb wife. You are so intelligent, so hard-working. You are such a great mom. You are charming and funny and fun to be with. You are still the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, and I love all your shapes and places. I am thankful God gave you to me. I have no regrets. If I could stay with you another thousand years, I would.

You must brace yourself for what I’m about to say.

It’s time for you to come back. Your rebellion against God has gone on long enough and it’s time to make peace with him.

Yes, I know that your faith is on the rocks. You’re telling yourself you don’t believe in God anymore. You say, how can God exist when there’s so much loss, so much chaos, so much pain? This is not the world of a good and loving God. This is a world of randomness and accident and chance.

Well, O Professor of English Literature, as you’ve often told me: the book is in the eye of the beholder. The interpreter makes the message.

I see all this loss and pain and I find God’s love in it. You see all this loss and pain and you find absurdity in it. It’s not the loss and pain that decides the case. It’s the beholder who makes the case, who sees and interprets it, finding love or absurdity from the same data. But it’s better to find love.

Who says that loss and pain mean that God isn’t there?

When did he ever say he would do things in a sensible or predictable way? Why did he make the world only to destroy it in the flood? Why did he choose Abraham only to face the rebellion of Abraham’s children? Why did he send his Son only to have him killed, only to raise him from the dead, only to have him go away again? “For the Lord shall rise up that he may do his work, his strange work; and bring to pass his act, his strange act.” Loss and strangeness and pain and chaos are nothing new in God’s world and nothing surprising. So why are you so surprised?

Is God only allowed to exist if his world is simple and easy?

I don’t think it’s God you disbelieve in. I think you believe in God’s judgment full well. What you don’t believe in is his Grace. You don’t believe you can be, or should be, forgiven.

But you already have been. Do I have to keep repeating to you? Jesus died for your sins, even your sin with Alan. Yes, I wrote his name. I forgive him, and I forgive you. When you finally let yourself believe in God’s forgiveness and mine, you’ll see that God is still in charge of all this mess, just as he has always been.

The kids need you back on your feet. They need you loving and serving and smiling and encouraging and correcting and teaching. They need you to have hope. They need the realism of your faith. Because without it, you will tear them apart with this fantasy of despair.

I’m very tired. I’ve been writing all day, in snatches here and there. There’s so much more. But I’m out of time.

Amy, dear Amy. I wait for you. But will you come?

With love, forever,

Brewer